ABSTRACT
Michael Chekhov’s concept of the emotional and spiritual significance of gesture in theatrical expression evolved in the context of interest in the work of François Delsarte (1811-71) in early twentieth-century Russia. There are a number of striking similarities between Chekhov’s discussions of gesture and Delsarte’s. These distinguish Chekhov’s method from Stanislavsky’s System, as I will discuss. Though Chekhov’s actor training method is used today, as it was in his time, without reference to its philosophical underpinnings in examining how and why the method is considered to work, it is important to explore the range of relevant contexts as fully as possible. In this chapter, I aim to draw some comparisons between Chekhov and Delsarte in order to extend this exploration. Delsarte developed a system of training for performers, which became very
important in Europe and America in the last part of the nineteenth century. He did not publish a manual of his method, so it has been derived from fragments of his lectures and writings, and the publications and notes of his students. Among these there were significant differences of opinion on aspects of Delsarte’s method. Also, the method was used in different ways as it spread to various parts of the world. Much remains opaque in this under-researched area, but it appears that any knowledge Chekhov would have had of Delsarte was via the work of Sergey Volkonsky (1860-1937).1 Volkonsky was the chief exponent in Russia of the training methods of Delsarte, and also of Émile Jaques-Dalcroze (1865-1950), who drew from Delsarte in the formulation of his system of eurhythmics, another very influential approach. Stanislavsky was very familiar with Volkonsky’s work; Chekhov certainly knew of him, and the variant of Delsartism that became known in Russia was influential on the work of theatre, dance, and film artists contemporary with Chekhov. In the following I compare the religious beliefs held by Delsarte and by Chekhov,
their views on emotion and gesture, on art and science, the idea of gesture as a semiotic system, and Chekhov’s concepts of Psychological Gesture (PG), centers, rhythm, and archetype. They shared a perception of the significance of movement to
emotion, and a belief in the language of the body and the significance of gesture as expressive of truths external to, and greater than, the individual; they also differed from Stanislavsky in referencing classical and ideal notions of art and beauty. Chekhov’s methods evolved in the context of the development of other ideas about acting, which used Delsartism in a reaction against Stanislavsky’s psychologically based System.
